“There is always a question, when discussing world-souls, of the source. From whence the springs of mana flow. There are tidal floes of mana between worlds, a natural interchange between the different planets to seek a state of harmony. Worlds possessed of too much fire mana project it into space and it seeks worlds that are lacking it. Worlds possessed of too much of any mana will project it out into the interlinking tides and flows we refer to as the universal matrix. Yet the question remains, from where is mana born. From what place does it enter existence. It cannot simply be the same mana everywhere in perpetual motion. And the answer, dear reader, is that mana comes from everywhere and everything. Each time a candle is lit, fire affinity mana is born into the world. Each time a child is born, there is an abundance of life mana brought into existence. Everything in the universe has its place in the matrix, and every affinity of mana seeks the place where it is needed. The world-soul does not create mana, the world around it does. It merely serves as the focal point where that mana is gathered. Where it can be drawn from in times of extreme crisis, when local supplies are insufficient.”

—Cosmic Errata: Notes on Interplanetary Mana Tides, Theron Greenmantle

With some food in his stomach, and the revelation of what he’d learned stowed away to be worried about later, Sylvas set off again. His eye consuming all the knowledge of all the libraries he’d been able to reach, his mind sifting back through all the other information that he’d acquired today, helping him to compose a better plan for what he meant to do next.

The upper ring was essentially overrun with the other recruits, the central ring predominantly closed off to visitors as it was full of offices and meeting rooms for the Ardent operations in the surrounding area. Sylvas wanted some peace and quiet to walk, process information and think without interruption, so neither was of much use. That left the lowest circle of Onslaught Citadel, where the mechanisms that kept the big hunk of metal in space were situated.

Every so often he would cross the path of one of the Ardent manning the station, and they’d give him something like a dirty look for roaming around their domain, but he and the others had been given freedom to roam all over the station, and unless he was actively causing trouble, he could expect to be unbothered. His first order of business would have to be constructing a replacement for his spell-cheat, then making the adjustments to his orbitals so that they responded to gravity, not magnetism and only then could he give serious consideration to what he might build for himself with any remaining funds. His staff had proven its value over and over again in his fight with Vaelith, so he was in no mad rush to make any major changes to it, but there were so many times when having the orbitals just a little faster and responsive could have helped turn the tide and secured him a win. They were empowered with his mana, and he could move them around just as freely as he could the mana within his own body, but there were still so many limitations, they were so sluggish, thanks to their affinity properties being off.

Necromancy was the subject of many texts in the Ardent library. Eidolons had always served as the primary purpose of the Ardent, and their most common opponent, but the undead that could be raised with death affinity mana were a close second. The most common cause of planetary destruction behind eidolons was death magic getting out of hand, and due to its cyclical nature, it was so incredibly easy for it to get out of hand. Every death that the magic caused could fuel it. The mana was produced in vast quantities, anywhere that a death had occurred, and that meant practically everywhere in the universe. All of creation was a graveyard, every inch of every planet built on top of the dead, and even if death mana hadn’t been so incredibly prevalent, it was produced endlessly by everything that lived. Every hair that was shed and every flake of skin represented a tiny death, and from it sprang forth more mana. Ambient mana, the chaotic mix that mages without affinities drew on, was often so tainted with death that it disrupted spells. That was one of the reasons that the Ardent trained their recruits on Relic Worlds, so they could become accustomed to all the death in the air.

Sylvas pushed the intrusive thoughts down. It didn’t matter if Malachai was a necromancer, the Ardent probably had a perfectly good reason for keeping him around. They’d clearly looked at the possibilities of having such a caster available and decided that it outweighed the danger of having such a caster around.

He returned to his mental catalogue of the different products that had been available for sale on the top floor, cross-referencing them with all that he’d read on the construction of artifacts like his mana-cheating gauntlet, and his plans for his orbitals. Perhaps there was a way to combine the two projects, using the off-cuts from one for the other, or sharing a similar piece of spell work so that he wasn’t having to produce vast quantities of enchanting text bespoke for each one. The idea that had been simmering at the back of his mind since he initially came across the mana-cheat wouldn’t fade, and it didn’t take long for him to realize that the components that he’d need to bring that idea to life would be easy enough to find on the station, all that he had to do was make some purchases, hoping they didn’t entirely deplete his savings, and then find somewhere that he could use as workshop space, provided that such a thing existed up here. If he could get all of the work done now before they returned to Strife, it would be so much better. He'd have all the time he needed to work on the project, and he’d have easy access to the merchants if there was anything awry with the material he had available to him.

Sylvas had been circling around the middle of the station for quite some time, weaving through the various chambers where machinery worked to keep the Citadel in orbit, and full of fresh air, rather than dead in space. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t cut out of the chaotic warren of rooms to the loop of corridors that ran around the outer hull, but something was drawing him in. Drawing him closer and closer to the center, like gravity.

For reasons he couldn’t grasp, Sylvas stopped dead next to a solid wall that must have been almost central to the station’s construction. There was something in the room on the other side. His gravity sense showed a vast empty space, and then… something in the middle. Something glowing with enough mana that it startled him.

Peering through the wall with his second sight, he realized that this must have been whatever source was powering the whole station, whatever Bael had called it earlier, a shard or fragment or something. It did have a jagged shape to it, but the radiance of the mana flowing through more than blurred the lines of whatever physical space it was occupying. Sylvas shuddered as his mind brushed against it. There was so much mana. Not just contained within the shard, but flowing into it too.

It felt like that fateful night, standing atop the tower in Croesia, when all the planets had aligned to deliver the maximum flow of mana to their world.

It felt like an echo in the back of his mind. A long forgotten one that flared back to life at the feeling of the fragment’s power.

He pressed a hand against the wall, expecting it to be hot to the touch from all the power radiating through it. It wasn’t just a source of power, it was drawing power too. All the surrounding mana in the whole solar system felt like it was making a slow drift towards it. At least from this close.

“You feel it?”

Sylvas jumped at the sudden presence of another person in the corridor with him. His hand automatically raised to cast before he realized he wasn’t under attack. Professor Kalisdrothan, the elf from the Veilbohr Institute hadn’t snuck up on Sylvas. The gentle pulsing heartbeat of whatever lay beyond the wall had simply distracted him. “Apologies professor, I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“You have encountered one of the many drawbacks of life upon a space-station, dear one, there is always someone in extremely close proximity to you at all times. Even in what you would like to think are your most private moments, you are scant inches from one another. A pity that the Ardent didn’t make their home upon one of the more spacious installations in orbit.” The elf seemed more subdued now that Bael was out of sight. He was still flamboyant, but less so.

Sylvas glanced back to the wall. “What am I feeling, exactly?”

“Rather more of a complex question than you meant to ask, most likely.” Kalisdrothan quipped. “Are you familiar with the concept of a World Soul?”

Somewhere in his expansive memory, Sylvas flipped open a textbook. “The nexus point where the flows of mana gather at the heart of a planet, allowing life to exist there.”

“A somewhat abridged version, but nonetheless predominantly accurate.” Kalisdrothan moved over to stand beside Sylvas, then slumped down to sit on the metal-grating floor. It was incongruous, him in his fancy robes, sitting on the grubby mesh. But despite that incongruity, Sylvas sat himself down beside him with his back against the thrumming wall. “When constructing these Citadels in space, the primordial residents of Strife encountered all of the usual issues that one has with such projects. Primarily that you are attempting to live in a place inherently unsupportive of life. Any mana that they needed to cast the vital spells to ensure their ongoing survival had to be drawn from the nearby planet in a rather arduous process. If you’re truly interested in ancient mana transferal ladders, I’ll be happy to pass you along some papers. Needless to say they swiftly hit upon the need for each of these stations to have an onboard source of mana, a miniature world soul which could provide them with a direct connection to the interstellar matrix of mana, and something to get rid of that rather nasty feeling one gets when deprived of a native mana field. The withering, I believe the humans call it. Regardless, this was hardly a novel concept, almost every spacefaring species has hit upon the desire for an artificial world to carry around in their pocket at some point. And while it is now dangerous to the point of there being a universal ban, the methodology used to produce such a thing has almost always been identical. One goes to the world soul of one’s own planet, and one fragments it. Seizing those shards, patching over the damage, and then using each fragment as a world soul in its own right. In close proximity, the world soul will of course heal itself, siphoning mana back into the central mass until the miniature loses cohesion, but by displacing these shards at a sufficient distance, they retain a degree of stability. And if you’re extremely lucky or very clever, your original world soul retains its stability too, so you didn’t just kill your planet for a fancy battery.”

Sylvas made a note to check what happened to a fragmented world soul that did not heal, but he had a suspicion already. “So this station is powered by a stable fragment of a broken world soul?”

“Strife’s world-soul, most specifically. It has been a subject of some discussion as to whether that fragmentation is what granted the planet its relic world status. After all, it is rather difficult for eidolons to gobble up your world’s soul if said soul is currently parceled off into a dozen neat containers arrayed in orbit.” Kalisdrothan had removed a flask from inside of his robes and offered Sylvas a sip, it smelled of whiskey, but he declined all the same.

“Is that why this planet survived when so many others died?”

“If it is,” the elf couldn’t entirely contain his excitement in those first few words, but it faded rapidly, “There certainly hasn’t been any evidence to that effect. No suggestion that the world soul of Strife itself has suffered any further damage beyond its fragmentation prior to the extinction event. It is one of the matters I intend to shed more light on, once we are on the surface. After all, to shard your world soul, you must have access to it, which suggests significant subterranean expansion that with any luck we will be able to explore.”

Sylvas had closed his eyes to bask in the comforting presence of the world soul. It was like it was calling out to him. Maybe it was just because he had no home world of his own, being this close to the soul of another was having such an effect. “If this is what a fragmented one feels like, I can’t wait to find one that’s intact.”

“Mostly intact.” Kalisdrothan corrected absently, “However, I suspect you have now hit upon the rather more complex part of your question inadvertently. To whit, why can you feel the presence of the world soul?”

Sylvas brows drew down. “Can’t everyone?”

“Absolutely not, dear one. If they did, I imagine their days would all be spent ooh-ing and aah-ing at it rather than conducting whatever terribly important Ardent business they are attending to. If they are possessed of the second sight, then staring directly at the thing will of course reveal a mass of mana, but only you seem to be having an emotional or physiological response to its presence.”

Sylvas turned his head to look at the professor directly, “So you can’t feel it either?”

“I must admit that I simply come down here for the quiet, not any great reverence.”

Settling back against the wall, Sylvas began trying to puzzle it through. “Then why can I feel it?”

“Well that, dear one, is where my original line of questioning cuts back in sharply. Is this some aspect of your affinity of which we were not aware? Is it perhaps one of the sensory enhancements you have undergone as a part of your secret Ardent training? I have no information with regard to you, so I can make no assumptions.”

Sylvas wasn’t sure how much to say. He kept things relatively quiet regarding the specifics of his build down on Strife to avoid the competition from learning to much and devising counter measures, but it felt strange to freely disclose it to this man too. No wonder scrying was considered so rude. Baring someone’s soul without their consent was akin to ripping off their clothes.

Sylvas tried to sort through his feelings. “It feels, familiar. Like I’ve felt it before. Before my affinity, before my new paradigm, I could still… it was like an echo. Whenever I used too much mana, or I was… I’ve felt it before.”

“Fascinating. Then it is perhaps something nascent in your makeup, or a predictor of your affinity.” The elf snapped his fingers, “Something that you learned at a young age? There are many pre-contact cultures who develop a religious attitude towards their world soul, was there perhaps some rite or ritual that you…”

Sylvas could only shake his head at the idea. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Fascinating all the same.” Kalisdrothan bumped his shoulder against Sylvas’ own. “You are a riddle, Mr. Sylvas Vail, a mystery that I hope to one day solve, with your permission of course.”

Sylvas managed a chuckle back. “I’d love to know what is going on.”

“Then let us work towards that goal together. And if we should happen upon access to the world soul of Strife during our time together on the surface, then all the better to explore this unusual aspect to your sensory apparatus.”

Sylvas had already been looking forward to the trip, just because archaeology was so fascinating, but now he had a personal stake in the mission. If they did manage to find the world soul, he might get one of the many questions that he had answered.

“And of course, with that mystery solved, you will immediately quit the Ardent and come work for me at the Veilbohr Institute for the remainder of your lifespan.”

“I don’t know what Bael has been telling you that makes you think I’m so unhappy in my current…” Sylvas paused, taking in the tiny quirk of the man’s eyebrow. Elves. “You’re joking.”

“Indeed, it is quite apparent that you are most attached to the Ardent.” Kalisdrothan chuckled. “But I answer to others than myself, and those others say I must ask you to join us until you say yes. So I must ask again and again.”

Sylvas climbed back to his feet, and offered a hand to the elf, who gladly took it. “Well, despite that, I’m genuinely pleased to have met you, Professor.”

The elf actually managed a full smile as he rose. “The feeling is mutual, dear one, of this I can assure you.”

Together, they progressed back out through the complex tangle of rooms and corridors to the ladders leading up to the central chamber, Sylvas haltingly sharing details of his homeworld, and Kalisdrothan carrying the conversation by comparing them to the medieval practices of so many other planets. The way that the archaeologist told it, the elves were the only ones in the universe to never go through a feudal period where the wealthy and powerful lorded it over the poor and the weak like they did on Croesia. But Sylvas suspected that it was perhaps an area of history that was just being glossed over. After all, if elves lived for as long as they claimed, then many of the medieval peasants from that period might still be walking around now with no fond memories of their ancient oppressors.

For politeness sake, Sylvas let the elf climb the ladder to the central plane ahead of him, but he would come to regret that politeness when he set up off the ladder only to see a head poking out over the top of the shaft, glowering down at him. Kaya roared, “Stanzbuhr!”

Groaning, Sylvas began his ascent to the third floor, and the drinking and reveling that was sure to follow. Chanting echoed down through the station as he diligently climbed, hand over hand. “Sigil! Sigil! Sigil!”

It was going to be an extremely long night.